It is … difficult to know why and how an idea is born – emerges from the tide of other ideas
which await realization, takes on substance and becomes fact. This however is not the case
regarding the Olympic Games. (Coubertin, 1966 [1896], p. 108)

He goes on to explain that the idea of the Olympic Games revival was not a
‘passing fancy’ but the logical culmination of a great movement (Coubertin,
1966 [1896], p. 108). In this third millennium, I think that we can agree that
whatever its faults and complexities, the Olympic Games have been a great
movement. However, I want to begin my chapter by disagreeing with Coubertin's
idea that the Games are not a passing fancy. I want to claim that perhaps we
should consider the Olympics in our post-age to be a kind of once-every-fouryears (in tribute to the ancient Greeks) passing fancy, one in which people,
athletes, spectators, collectors – ‘players all’ as Bob Rinehart (1998) refers to
them – get to create, invent traditions and remake the Olympic Games. Some
involved in the post-Olympic Games will be athletes – the best in this world;
others will be watchers or shoppers, some will compose rules of contests while
they watch the games, others might design computer/virtual games at special
game design chambers. In this chapter, I identify what I call ‘essences’ of which
such post-Olympism and Olympic Games are composed. The essences I discuss
within include performativity, aesthetics, transcendence and acceleration. My
writings about these essences are preliminary, a prolegomena for the study of
post-Olympism.

Imagine then, a post-Olympism that connotes nothing of nationalism, which
celebrates essences of sport such as competition, beauty, sacrifice, awe, extreme
performance, coming community, fantasy. What would such Olympic games
be like?

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